Understanding The Basics Of Metadata ROI

John Horodyski of DAM Educationhas written an introductory article about metadata for CMSWire. The level is relatively basic and maybe more suitable as an executive overview than for anyone who has done the rounds with a typical DAM implementation, however, the second page has some useful pointers about developing a metadata strategy and three questions you need to consider. Below I have paraphrased these:

What problems do you need to solve – or why do you need the metadata fields being considered?

Who is going to use the metadata and why?

What kinds of metadata are important to help you achieve those goals?

The key quote of the article is this:

“every metadata field costs money and time to implement and adjust to. There is no benefit unless the tagged content cuts costs or improves revenues; you need to demonstrate bottom-line and top-line benefits — focus on the productivity gains. ” [Read More]

The essence is that metadata takes time to complete and time = money. So there is a balance (or trade-off) that you need to get right between asking for an excessive quantity of data that will take end users a long time to fill out and storing useful information that will add value to the core digital file.